


The Inconveniences of Being Dead

by rhysiana



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (Canon Divergent in the way all things with a cohesive Peter Hale are), Accidental Cat Ownership, Accidental Relationship, Canon Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 17:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17329427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysiana/pseuds/rhysiana
Summary: Chris needs to take care of people. It's been a very long time since anyone tried to do that for Peter. He decides he'll allow it.





	The Inconveniences of Being Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anodyneer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anodyneer/gifts).



> This is an entirely ridiculous and self-indulgent thing I wrote after anodyneer and I laughed over the idea of turning a tweet we saw that was something along the lines of "My uncle's sugar daddy is sitting next to me on the couch showing me pictures of his cats while we wait for my uncle to finish getting ready" into a Chris/Peter prompt, and then my brain wouldn't leave it alone. It's kind of that, but not really.

It was pure chance that Chris was standing behind him when his credit card got declined.

“Oh, here, put it on mine,” he said smoothly, reaching across Peter to the cashier as Peter just stood there, frozen in momentary disbelief that something so _stupid_ had happened. To _him_. “You can just ring all of our stuff up together.”

The cashier giggled— _giggled_ —at him and obligingly rang up the overpriced groceries, then bagged them all together, too. Chris handed one of the bags to Peter like it was second nature and waltzed out of the store with Peter’s aged cheddar.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Peter demanded when they were safely shielded from view on the far side of Chris’s ridiculously compensatory SUV.

“Buying your groceries. Do you want to sort them out here, or can I give you a ride?” Chris asked, and beeped the doors open.

“I…” Peter had rarely been so lost for words, and it wasn’t a sensation he was particularly enjoying.

Chris leaned one hip against the car, a pose Peter remembered from high school. “Forgot you were dead, didn’t you?”

Peter felt his lip draw up in a snarl and tried to rein it in. “That card shouldn’t even have been in my wallet.” He was Peter goddamn Hale, he didn’t make mistakes like this.

“How have you been paying for things?” Chris asked curiously. There was no judgment in his tone, but Peter bristled anyway.

“Cash,” he snapped.

Chris raised an eyebrow. “From what bank?”

“Not all of our resources were in a bank,” Peter said shortly. He wasn’t about to admit to the Hale vault underneath the high school, certainly not to an _Argent_. No matter the past he may have had with this particular one. “I didn’t anticipate running out of cash today.” God, this was so irritating. His fingers itched to just grab his things and go.

“Surely you, of all people, have a fake identity or two. I mean, you planned a way to come back from the dead, surely you had contingencies.”

Peter’s lips tightened and he looked away. “I had several. It’s just a bit hard to keep growing convincing aliases when you’re in a coma for six years.” He’d had to trash all of them. Injury he’d accounted for in his planning, but a coma? Who’d ever heard of a werewolf falling into a coma, let alone one that lasted for six years? He was adapting, though; he would be fine. This was just a blip, an anomaly.

“I could get you one.”

Peter’s gaze snapped back to Chris. “What?”

Chris shrugged, all studied nonchalance as he nudged Peter away from the rear door and opened it to place the groceries in the footwell. “I burned my bridges with the hunting community, not my own contacts. I can get you a new identity.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed. As if he didn’t have his own contacts. “I have extremely high standards. I won’t accept anything without a believable life history. None of this popping into existence six months ago business.”

The look Chris shot him in response was unimpressed in the extreme, but a noticeable measure of tension left his shoulders. Interesting. “I know what I’m doing, Peter. Now get in the car.”

Peter got in the car. He had nothing better to do with his afternoon, and Chris still had his cheese, after all.

***

He was reading peacefully in a coffee shop (or at least trying to) when Chris sat down in the armchair next to his.

Peter ignored him.

“If you’re still legally dead, where have you been living?”

Peter sighed and closed his book. “I’m fine.” Like he was going to explain the details of under-the-table subletting to Chris. It wasn’t his business anyway.

“I’m sure. But seriously,” Chris leaned forward, oddly intense, “is it a permanent situation? Your own space. I know how… important… that can be.” _For werewolves_.

Peter took a measured sip of his coffee, swallowing it carefully, taking the time to savor it. Delaying. “And if I said it’s not?”

“Let me get you a place.”

Peter waved him off. “When the new ID comes through, I’ll be fine. You know that.”

“But doing it to your standards is going to take my guy some time, and I can do this for you _now_.”

Peter cocked his head and considered Chris for long enough he began to fidget with the sleeve on his to-go cup. “Why is this so important to you, Christopher?”

He watched as Chris visibly considered and discarded several answers before sitting up just a bit straighter, as if steeling himself. “Because I wasn’t here.”

Peter scoffed. “Do you think I expected you to be? You don’t owe me anything.”

Chris looked like he wanted to argue with that, but made an aborting gesture with his hand as if telling himself it wasn’t worth it. “Maybe not, but I can help you now. This is something I can do. I want to.”

Peter bought time again by finishing the last of his coffee, but by the time he replaced it in its saucer, he’d made up his mind. “Fine.” He’d been steadfastly ignoring how much it was bothering his instincts to be living in someone else’s space, but now that he was being offered another option? He’d be a fool to turn it down. And Peter had never been a fool.

Chris’s smile in response was small but still managed to stop Peter’s breath for a second with the strength of its sincerity.

Peter ended up with a condo in a new high-rise downtown. Chris didn’t seem the least bit offended when Peter curtly turned down his offer to help him move in, just handed over the keys and left, walking lighter than Peter could recall seeing since he woke up.

***

It wasn’t like Chris stopped by all the time, or even very often, at least at first, but Friday dinners became a thing. Allison was almost always out, and Peter could recognize a person desperate to avoid sinking too far into his own thoughts when left alone when he saw one.

Besides, Peter liked cooking, and it was easier to make enough for two than one anyway. Having too many leftovers got boring after a while.

He’d just taken his boeuf bourguignon out of the oven to add the mushrooms when Chris knocked. Chris smiled as Peter opened the door for him, but froze halfway through taking off his coat, still in the entryway.

“What?” Peter asked, mostly to remind Chris to breathe again. It didn’t feel like a warning of danger, just shock. Peter inhaled, seeking clues, and caught a rising wave of sorrow. Mixed with anger.

“It was… Victoria. Used to make this.”

Peter nodded, turned, and bundled the whole Dutch oven into a dishtowel and carried it out onto the balcony, leaving the door open, despite the cold, to dispel the smell faster. Then he came back, took Chris’s coat from his clenched hand, and looked him straight in the eye, one hand on the side of Chris’s neck. His thumb brushed the edge of Chris’s jaw.

“She was wrong, you know. To leave you and Allison that way. She had a life, a better one than she deserved, and she threw it away.”

The shudder that ran through Chris felt like it had been a long time coming. Peter left his hand where it was until Chris closed his eyes and looked away.

“I’m ordering Indian,” Peter announced, nudging Chris in the direction of the couch. “Express a preference now, or you’ll get whatever I decide I want and be happy about it.”

Chris just tossed his credit card at Peter in response and let his head fall back onto the cushions of the couch behind him. Peter shook his head and placed the order, pushing down the desire to run soothing fingers over Chris’s brow while he did it.

***

“What,” Peter asked with distaste, “are those?”

“Cats,” Chris said, handing one over as he stepped through the door, like handing a werewolf a kitten was a normal thing to do.

Peter cradled the thing in his hands gingerly, carefully holding it away from his body as he kicked the door shut behind him. It was going to claw him any minute now; they always did. “Yes, I can see that, Christopher, but why have you brought them _here_?”

Chris was holding his own kitten close to his chest, petting the demonic bundle of gray fur with a single finger. “Found them abandoned in an alley behind the delivery I was doing today.”

Peter eyed him askance. “Isn’t your business more legitimate than back-alley exchanges these days?”

Chris didn’t even deign to look up. “Mm-hmm. I did say it was _behind_ the building.”

The mottled orange and black creature in Peter’s hands stared up at him with large, unblinking eyes. It didn’t hiss. Its eyes were nearly beta gold. He stared back. It yawned widely, revealing needle-sharp teeth and a tiny pink tongue, and then curled itself into a ball in his hands, entirely unconcerned.

“But why did you bring them here?” Peter asked again.

“My building doesn’t allow pets.”

Peter looked at Chris in utter disbelief. “You cannot be serious. You can’t leave them with me! Cats hate werewolves.”

Chris looked at Peter, who’d brought his hands in to cradle the kitten to his chest instinctively when he’d looked up to glare, and smirked. “Yeah, I can see that.”

Peter looked down again. “Oh, shut up,” he said crossly.

“Here,” Chris said, and handed him the other kitten, “I have some things for them down in the car. I’ll be right back.”

***

(When Chris came over again the next day with some more cat toys, he found Peter reading on the couch, steadfastly ignoring the kittens, one of whom was perched on the back of the couch just over his shoulder, the other curled in his lap. Chris took a picture and kept the thought that the cats recognized one of their own to himself.)

***

“And this is Westley and Buttercup,” Peter heard Chris say from down the spiral stairs at Derek’s loft, and groaned internally. Damn that pixie infestation in the Preserve anyway. Peter shouldn’t have agreed to help. The children could have handled it, and he wouldn’t have had to take a shower, and Chris wouldn’t have come to pick him up here, and he never would have started showing Derek pictures of his cats. Peter ran the towel over his hair one last time and tried not to growl audibly.

“You named them after _Princess Bride_ characters?” Oh god, Stiles was still here, too.

“Peter kept threatening to kill them in the morning.”

Even Derek snorted a laugh at that. Peter was going to murder Chris. Slowly.

“Oh my god,” Stiles said suddenly. “That’s who’s living in your other apartment.”

Peter tugged on the spare shirt he’d stolen from Derek’s drawers and tied his shoes as fast as he could. Clearly this conversation had gone on for long enough.

“And why do you know that?” Chris asked, far too calmly in Peter’s opinion.

“I like to look up property records when I’m bored?” Stiles said. The sad thing was, it was probably true. “It makes sense, though,” Stiles continued, thoughtful in a way that was always dangerous. “I mean, legally, Peter’s still dead.”

“Aren’t you just the clever one?” Peter said as he finally came down the stairs. Sometimes he contemplated throttling the boy, but he was the only smart one, and really, he’d just find a way to haunt them all anyway.

Stiles’ eyes lit up as Peter crossed the room. “Does this mean Chris is your sugar daddy?” He turned to Derek, who looked pained. “This is the best day ever!”

“Please stop,” Derek said. Really, Peter thought, he should have known better.

Chris blinked at Stiles and then his eyes flitted over to Peter briefly, like the thought had never occurred to him. It probably hadn’t; Chris had always been far too straight-laced for his own good. Peter had tried his best to broadened Chris’s horizons for a few months there in high school, but he’d been no match for the Argent family expectations. Not then, at least.

Peter, on the other hand, thought about every aspect of everything, all the time. Which Stiles should really know by now. He came to a stop next to Chris and snaked an arm around his waist as he shot a lazy and extremely suggestive smile at Stiles. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” Chris just stood there in slightly rigid shock, not doing anything to sell the image, alas.

Derek clapped a hand over Stiles’ mouth. “No, he wouldn’t. Thank you.”

Stiles licked him and Derek removed his hand with a disgusted look that didn’t fool anyone.

“Okay,” Stiles said to Chris, irrepressible, “but even without questions that are going to traumatize Derek’s delicate sensibilities, I get what Peter gets from this deal, but what do you get?”

“A place to park his cats,” Peter said.

“Someone who doesn’t gaslight me about my entire life,” Chris said over top of him, and Peter dropped his lightly sarcastic façade to look at him in surprise.

Chris looked a little shocked he’d said that out loud, but that changed to defiant as he caught Peter’s gaze. As if Peter wouldn’t understand. That was the entire point, after all. Peter fit his hand around the back of Chris’s neck like he’d been wanting to do for weeks and pulled him in to kiss him. Thoroughly. It was not chaste. Chris kissed him back like he was drowning.

“My eyes!” Stiles said, and then yelped as Derek dragged him away.

“Come on,” Peter said when Chris pulled back for breath. “Let’s go feed your cats.”

***

The cats didn’t appreciate being shut out of the bedroom, but Peter told them they’d better get used to it. They came to an understanding eventually.


End file.
